The European Union and the End of Politics by James Heartfield

Author:James Heartfield [Heartfield, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78099-949-4
Publisher: Zero Books
Published: 2013-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

And from the Martian viewpoint, no doubt, rules and laws appear to be much the same thing - in both cases subjects can be observed obeying them. But what is opaque from that objectivist standpoint is the law’s derivation from the popular will, embodied in the elected, legislative assembly. Sovereignty is the ‘value’ that Haas’s value-free social science is free of, which makes it particularly bad at describing the movement away from nationally based sovereignty (or for that matter towards a larger, continentally-based sovereignty).

One consequence of this methodological objectivity is the appearance of indifference to the preferability or otherwise of integration, which is described merely as a process observed, without any implication of its value. However, the mask of objectivity slips a little when Haas takes issue with the political federalism of Altiero Spinelli’s Union of European Federalists, which took the issue of Federation to the people in 1954: ‘with all the “sublimity” [sic] and élan of the Sorelian general strike doctrine, Spinelli posited the immediate need for recognising and organising the “European People” and making a “European Front” of dedicated and militant federalists of them, demanding the immediate abolition of the nation-state’.43 Suddenly we are wrenched from observation to judgement, making it clear that actions that threaten integration are unwelcome. But what did Spinelli do that was so wrong? He took too literally the idea of the ‘European people’ and put it directly to them, presumably before the ‘advent of a new nationalism’ could manifest itself. Here, Haas demonstrates his own discomfort with mass political processes, and following on from that his greater affinity for elite processes.

Haas sees political integration as ‘the process whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities towards a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over re-existing nation states’. But that leaves open the question, which ‘political actors’? As we have already seen, the Union of European Federalists are not amongst those adding to the integration process. Haas clarifies his approach in The Uniting of Europe: ‘it is essential to specify who the actors are … it suffices to single out and identify elites’ (which he goes on to do, in the shape of political, business and trade union leaderships).44

Haas excuses his exclusive focus on elites in this way:

The emphasis on elites in the study of integration derives its justification from the bureaucratised nature of European organisations of long-standing, in which basic decisions are made by the leadership, sometimes over opposition and usually over the indifference of the general membership.

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